The Corner House Girls Under Canvas

“Yes, he is,” whispered the amazed Tess. “He’s the young man Tom Jonah chased up on to the henhouse roof.”

“Well,” said the philosophical Dot, “he can’t steal our chickens here.”

“Just the same I wish Tom Jonah was here with us. I – I’d feel better about meeting him,” confessed Tess.

The other girls did not hear this conversation between the two youngest Kenways. Ruth and Agnes, however, were really troubled by the meeting with the Gypsies; the former was, in addition, suspicious of the woman who had been on the train with them.

This strange woman did not come out of the tent. Indeed, almost at once she disappeared, dropping the curtain. She did not wish to be observed by the girls from Milton.

“Oh, come on!” cried the reckless Pearl. “They’ll only ask us a dime each. ‘Cross their palms with silver,’ you know. And they do tell the queerest things sometimes.”

“I don’t believe we’d better stop this afternoon, Pearl,” ventured Ruth, as one of the rough fellows drew nearer to the girls.

“Let the little ladies wait but a short time,” said this man. “They will have revealed to them all they wish to know.”

He had an ugly leer, and had Pearl looked at him she would have been frightened by his expression. But she was searching her chain-purse for dimes. It did not look to Ruth Kenway as though that purse would last long in the company of these evil fellows.

Now the same tent flap was pushed aside again and into the open hobbled an old crone. She seemed to be a toothless creature, and leaned upon a crutch. Gray strands of coarse hair straggled over her wrinkled forehead. She had a hump on her back – or seemed to have, for she wore a long cloak, the bedraggled tail of which touched the ground.

She hobbled across the lawn toward the girls. Ruth watched her closely for, it seemed, she came more hurriedly than seemed necessary.

A dog – one of the mongrels that infested the camp – ran at her, and the old crone struck at the creature with her crutch; he ran away yelping. She was plainly more vigorous of arm than one would have believed from her decrepit appearance.

The grinning fellows separated as the old hag came forward. She did not speak to them, but she was muttering to herself.

“Incantations!” whispered Pearl. “Isn’t she enough to give you the delicious shudders? Oh!”

Pearl was evidently enjoying the adventure to the full, but some of the girls besides Ruth and Agnes, did not feel so very pleasant. When one of the fellows took hold of Carrie Poole’s wrist-watch with a grimy finger and thumb, she screamed.

“Don’t fear, little lady,” said the tall, grim man, and he struck the officious fellow with his elbow in the ribs. “He means nothing harmful. Here is Zaliska, the Queen of the Romany. She is very old and very wise. She will tell you much for a silver shilling; but she will tell you more for two-bits.”

“He means a quarter,” said Pearl, explaining. “But a quarter’s too much. Show her your palms, girls. This is my treat. I have ten dimes.”

The tall man had motioned his fellows back, but they were arranged around the party of girls in such a way that, no matter which way they turned, one of the ruffians was right before them!

“Oh, Ruth! I am frightened!” whispered Agnes in her sister’s ear.

“Sh! don’t scare the children,” Ruth said, her first thought for Tess and Dot.

The old crone hobbled directly to Ruth and put out a brown claw. Ruth extended her own right hand tremblingly. The hag was mumbling something or other, but Ruth could not hear what she said at first, the other girls were chattering so.

Then she noticed that the grip of the old Gypsy was a firm one. The back of her hand seemed wrinkled and puckered; but suddenly Ruth knew that this was the effect of grease paint!

This was a made-up old woman – not a real old woman, at all!

The discovery frightened the Corner House girl almost as much as the rough men frightened her. “Zaliska” was a disguised creature.

She clung to Ruth’s hand firmly when the girl would have pulled it away, and now Ruth heard her hiss:

“Get you away from this place. Get you away with your friends – quick. And do not come back at all.”

Ruth was shaking with hysterical terror. The creature clung to her hand and mumbled this warning over and over again.

“What’s she telling you, Ruth?” demanded the hilarious Pearl.

“Trouble! trouble!” mumbled the supposed fortune-teller, shaking her head, but accepting the next girl’s dime.

Ruth whispered swiftly to Pearl: “Oh! let us get out of here. These men mean to rob us – I am sure.”

“They would not dare,” began the startled Pearl.

Just then there was a creaking of heavy wheels, and a voice shouting to oxen. The Gypsies glanced swiftly and covertly at one another, falling back farther from the vicinity of the girls.

Indeed, several of them returned to the card game. The fortune-teller mumbled her foolish prophecies quickly. Into the glade, along a wood-path from the thicker timber, came two spans of oxen dragging three great logs. A pleasant-faced young man swung the ox-goad and spoke cheerily to the slow-moving, ponderous animals.

“Let’s go at once, Pearl!” begged Ruth. “We’ll keep close to this lumberman. Dot and Tess can ride on the logs.”

“Come on, girls! I think this old woman is a faker,” cried Pearl. “She can’t even tell me whether I’m going to marry a blond man, or a brunette!”

“Don’t go yet, little ladies,” said the tall man, suavely. “Zaliska can tell you much – ”

“Let’s go, girls!” cried Carrie Poole, snatching her hand away from the supposed old woman.

Ruth and Agnes had already seized their sisters and were hurrying them toward the lumberman.

“Whoa, Buck! Whoa, Bright!” shouted the teamster, cracking the whiplash before the leading span of oxen. “Sh-h! Steady. What’s the matter, girls?”

“Won’t you take us to the main road where we can get the stage for Pleasant Cove?” cried Ruth.

“Sure, Miss. Going right there. Want to ride?”

“Oh, yes, sir!” cried the Corner House girls.

“That will be great fun!” shouted some of the others. “Come on!”

They clambered all over the logs, that were chained together and swung from the axle of the rear pair of wheels. The Gypsies began gathering around and some of them muttered threateningly, but the lumberman cracked his whip and the oxen started easily.

“Cling on, girls!” advised the driver. “No skylarking up there. Soon have you out to the pike road. And you want to keep away from that Gypsy camp. They are a tough lot – very different from the crowd that camped there last year and the year before. We farmers are getting about ready to run them out, now I tell ye!”

Ruth said nothing – not even to Agnes – about what she had discovered. She had penetrated “Queen Zaliska’s” disguise. She believed that the supposed old crone was the handsome, dark girl whom she had observed so narrowly on the train.

Perhaps nobody but Ruth, of the party of ten girls, really understood that they had been in peril from the Gypsies. She believed that, had they not gotten away from the camp as they had, the men would have robbed them.

The Gypsies were afraid of the husky lumberman, and they did not follow the girls. Once on the highway, Pearl declared the auto-stage would be along in ten minutes or so, and they bade the lumberman good-bye with a feeling of perfect safety.

The Gypsies had not dared follow the party. Soon the stage came along, and for ten cents each the girls rode into Pleasant Cove. There were only a few other passengers, and the party from Milton sat on top and had a lot of fun.

Pearl pointed out the byroad that led down to the river beach where the tent colony was set up, but the stage went right past Spoondrift bungalow, and the girls got down and charged that dwelling “like a horde of Huns,” Agnes declared.